The Logical Blog

January 4, 2011

PowerPoint 2007: Adding Voiceover Narration to Presentations Converted to Movies

by AJ George

Last week I detailed how to turn a PowerPoint 2007 presentation into a movie that could be uploaded to popular video sharing sites like YouTube.

If you wanted to add voiceover narration to the movie, however, you may have run into a bit of a problem–there is only one row in the Windows Movie Maker timeline for audio. If there was a need to add background music to the presentation in addition to narration, you would be in a bit of a pickle.

This week, expanding upon the same method from last week, I will show you not only how to add voiceover narration, but how to have it play at the same time as background music.

Follow the instructions from last week to create a movie from your PowerPoint presentation with audio and save your movie as a .wmv file.
Note (And this is important!): Once you have saved your PowerPoint presentation with the audio as a .wmv file in Windows Movie Maker you will not be able to adjust the length of each slide. Practice your narration before saving this original file so you can adjust the length of time each slide plays as necessary before continuing on to add narration.
Open the .wmv file in Windows Movie Maker.
If necessary, drag the .wmv file(s) down to the storyboard.
From just above the storyboard at the bottom of the screen, click Show Timeline.
Since the audio you previously added is now a part of the imported video, you have a spot on your timeline to add more audio.
Click the Narrate Timeline tool.

Note: You can use the microphone built in to your computer for narration. However, if you are looking for better sound quality it is usually better to use an external microphone. We use and recommend the Sennheiser 350.
Drag the blue playback indicator directly before the slide for which you would like to begin narrating.
In the center of the screen where it now says Narrate Timeline, click the Show more options link.
Activate (put a check mark next to) Mute Speakers.

Since you have previously added audio, this will prevent the microphone from picking up that audio in your narration and causing an echo effect.
Click the Start Narration button and record your narration.
Click Stop Narration when you are finished.
The Save Windows Media file window will appear.
Give your narration a name and click Save.
Click the Done link when you have completed all narration recordings.
Drag your Narration recording(s) from the Collections area down to the Audio/Music portion of your timeline.
Save your video as covered last week.
You are now ready to upload your movie to a video sharing site.

If you would like more tips on recording audio for eLearning voiceovers, consider taking our Audio Basics for eLearning live, online class.

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About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

December 16, 2010

Adobe Founders Write an Open Letter to Apple

Adobe co-founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke have written an open letter to Apple computer about the lack of support for Flash content on Apple devices (namely the iPhone and iPad). In part, the founders say "As the founders of Adobe, we believe open markets are in the best interest of developers, content owners, and consumers. Freedom of choice on the web has unleashed an explosion of content and transformed how we work, learn, communicate, and, ultimately, express ourselves."

December 16, 2010

PowerPoint 2007: Converting Presentations to Movies

by AJ George

I am frequently asked if it is possible to convert PowerPoint presentations into movies that can be shared on websites such as YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook. Sadly, the answer is no, at least not from within PowerPoint 2007. However, there is a workaround if you have Windows Movie Maker on your system (most computers using Windows do have the program by default).

The following steps show how to convert a presentation into a movie. However, please note that any transitions or custom animations you have applied to your slides will not convert. You can add transitions between slides in Windows Movie Maker, but I would suggest reworking any slides in PowerPoint that were dependent upon animations.

Using PowerPoint, open the presentation you would like to convert into a movie.
Click the Office button and select Save As.
The Save As dialog box appears.
From the Save As dialog box, navigate to where you would like the presentation to be saved.
From the Save as type drop-down menu, select JPEG File Interchange Format (*.jpg).

A dialog box will appear asking whether or not you want to export every slide or only the current slide.
Select Every Slide.
A dialog box will appear alerting you that each slide in your presentation has been saved as a separate file in a folder by the same name as your presentation.
Click OK.
Close PowerPoint.
Open Windows Movie Maker.
Choose File > Import Into Collections.
The Import File dialog box appears.
Navigate to the folder in which you saved each slide as a JPG image.
Open the folder and press [Ctrl] [A] on your keyboard to select all of the images.
Click Import.
All of your slides will appear in the Collections area in the center of the screen.
Press [Ctrl] [A] on your keyboard to select all of the slides and drag them down to the storyboard below.
If you press the Play button on the preview panel to the right, you will notice that your presentation is now in movie form. If all you needed was a movie, skip to Step 19. If you would like to add music or other audio, continue to the next step.
To add music to the movie, select Import audio or music from the Capture Video category.
The Import File dialog box appears.
Navigate to where your audio is saved, select it and click Import.
Just above the storyboard, click Show Timeline if necessary (if you are looking at the timeline instead of the storyboard already, skip this step).
Drag your imported audio from the Collections area to the Audio/Music portion of the timeline.
Right-click the audio track on the timeline and notice that a shortcut menu pops up with audio options including Mute, Fade In, Fade Out, and Volume. Adjust these setting as you would like.
Take the time to play around with the Edit Movie options. (You can add transitions or effects as needed.)
From the Finish Movie category, select Save to my computer.
The Save Movie Wizard appears.
Give your movie a name and select where you would like to save it.
Click Next a few times and then click Finish.
Your movie is now ready to be uploaded to your video sharing site of preference.

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About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

December 15, 2010

Adobe RoboHelp 8: Creating Multiple Topics From One Word Document

by Kevin Siegel

One of the most common ways to add new content to a RoboHelp project is by importing a Word document via File > Import > Word Document. If the Word document contains a TOC, Headers, Footers or Index, they will import nicely into RoboHelp. However, during the import process, it's highly likely that you will end up with one, large topic in RoboHelp instead of several small ones. So how do you instruct RoboHelp to create several topics out of the one Word document? Read on…

During the import process you will be working within an Import dialog box. The dialog box gives you access to options that control how the Word document will be formatted as it is imported into RoboHelp. All you need to do is click the Edit button you will see to the right of Word Document: Edit conversion settings for Word documents.

RoboHelp Edit button

After clicking the Edit button, your Word document will be scanned and the Conversion Settings dialog box will appear. This is where you can control which paragraphs in the Word document will be paginated into new topics.

From the Word Document Settings area, select the style or styles that you used in the Word document to be used as new topics. For instance, Heading 1 is typically used in Word to designate main sections in the document. In that case, you would select Heading 1 from the list of Word styles.

Next, select Pagination from the list of options in the middle of the dialog box.

RoboHelp Pagination

By selecting Pagination for specific Word styles, RoboHelp will create a new topic every time it sees that Heading 1 was used in the Word document.

After that, all you'd need to do is click the OK button and then the Finish button and the Word document will be imported into RoboHelp. Once the import process is complete, you will find your new topics on RoboHelp's Topic List pod.

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Looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp? I offer a live, two-day online class once a month.

December 14, 2010

Adobe Captivate 5: Make Quick Work Out of Adding Audio to a Project

by Kevin Siegel

Adding audio to your Captivate project is one of the best ways to increase the effectiveness of the lesson. When the time comes to add audio, you have a couple of different options. For instance, if you want to add audio to the project slide, you would choose Audio > Import to > Slide. If you would like to attach audio to an object on a slide, you would first select the object and choose Audio > Import to > Object. Either way, the Import audio dialog box opens and you would browse to the appropriate audio file (Captivate allows you to import either WAV or MP3 file formats) and open the file.

The steps above are simple, but the process becomes laborious if you intend to use several audio clips in a project. If your project consisted of 100 slides and hundreds of objects, you would be looking at thousands of clicks. Again, not difficult stuff but certainly time-consuming.

Considering that this is the holiday season, I'd like to give a gift… the gift of time. You can speed up the audio import process dramatically by following these steps.

Show the Library (via the Window menu).
On the Library, click the Import tool.
Browse to the folder containing the audio clips you intend to use in the Captivate project. Select some or all of the files and open them.

On the import project has completed, you'll notice that all of the audio clips appear in the Audio folder on the Library.
The final step… and the one that's going to save you all the time, is to drag the audio clips from the Library and directly onto slide objects. For instance, if you want to add a clip to the slide, drag the audio clip directly on top of the slide on the Filmstrip. To add an audio clip to a slide object, drag the clip directly on top of the slide's object.
And that's it. With the time you have just saved, get on out there and get that holiday shopping done (or started).

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Looking to learn Adobe Captivate 5? We are now offering Beginner and Advanced classes, as well as a half-day course on Advanced Actions. Both Windows and Macintosh developers can attend the classes.

December 10, 2010

Link to download the Adobe Captivate Reviewer 2.0 Installer

I've heard from several Captivate 5 developers that they do not have the Adobe Captivate Reviewer 2.0 on their systems. That's strange because the Reviewer is usually installed when you install Captivate 5.

If the installer is not on your system, you'll find that the download link isn't easy to find via a Google search. In that case, here is a direct link to download the installer. (Don't say I never do nuttin for ya!)

FYI: You'll need the Adobe Captivate Reviewer 2.0 application to open Captivate Review Files (CREV's) and send comments back to the Captivate developer via Acrobat.com, which is wicked cool. When you send CREV's to reviewers from within Captivate, the link above is included in the email that your reviewers will open (you won't have to manually send the link to reviewers).

December 9, 2010

Adobe FrameMaker 10 and RoboHelp 9 Sneak Peeks

RJ Jacquez of Adobe has posted videos of the next versions of FrameMaker (10) and RoboHelp (9).

According to Jacquez, "With version 9, we are taking RoboHelp and RoboHelp Server to the next level by helping our customers incorporate important Industry trends taking place today into their TechComm workflow. Trends like User-generated content, Community-based User Assistance, Rich Internet Applications, Content Personalization, Rich Media, Mobile publishing, the Cloud and others." Here is a link to the RoboHelp video.

As for FrameMaker 10, Jacquez said "Our customers are telling us that their end-users expect more from them, more interactive and richer experiences that are socially-enabled, too." Here is a link to the FrameMaker video.

December 9, 2010

PowerPoint 2010: Reuse Slides

by AJ George

Sometimes it would really save time if you could reuse a slide from an existing presentation rather than have to copy and paste all of its elements to a new slide. Here's how to do that.

In Normal view, decide where in your presentation you would like to reuse a slide and select the slide directly before it. (PowerPoint will insert the slide after whatever slide you have selected.)
From the Home tab, choose Slides > New Slide > Reuse Slides.

The Reuse Slides panel appears at the right.
Click the Browse button and select Browse File.

The Browse dialog box appears.
Locate the presentation from which you would like to reuse slides and click Open.
All of the slides from the presentation will appear in the Reuse Slides panel.

Note: Checking the Keep source formatting option at the bottom of the Reuse Slides panel will import your old slides into the new presentation with whatever fonts, backgrounds, etc were used in the original presentation. If you decide to keep this unchecked, all of the slide's images, text and animation will be brought over, but the background and font formatting you have set up in the new presentation will be applied.
Select the slide(s) you would like to reuse.
Your old slides have now been inserted.

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About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Writer and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."

December 9, 2010

Acrobat X: Help… Anywhere!

by David R. Mankin

Help… it's one of the first things I teach in any Acrobat class. The Acrobat Help System is available with a quick press of the F1 key, and it's been that way for as long as I can remember (regardless of the version of Acrobat).

What varies from version to version is the type of Help file that ships with Acrobat, and therefore the program in which Help opens. Later versions of Help were HTML based documents, and opened in your default browser. In Acrobat 9, pressing F1 opened your browser and presented an HTML help file that was on your hard drive.

I was a little surprised to see what happened when I pressed F1 in the brand-new Acrobat X. My browser opened and the Help file was offered for my use, but I quickly noticed that the browser's address bar indicated that this was not a local file on my hard drive, but an HTML file located on Adobe's server. Is this a problem? No… unless you're at 36,000 feet over the Rocky Mountains in a 747, or inside the walls of a highly secure workspace.

I found a neat way to ensure that Acrobat's Help file is at your fingertips at all time. From a computer with Acrobat X installed (and internet access), press F1 from within Acrobat to open the online Help file in your web browser. In the upper right of your browser window, look for a link that reads View Help PDF (23 MB) and click it.

This will load a PDF version of the Help file into your browser window, or you can right-click the link and opt to save the PDF to your computer. I have the PDF Help file saved to my desktop so it's available and easy to find–even at 36,000 feet!

Since Acrobat X's help file is online, you only need a url to see it: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/index.html.

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About the author: David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. And if that wasn't enough, of course David is an Adobe-certified expert in Adobe Acrobat.

December 8, 2010

Writing & Grammar Workshop: Is It Website or Web Site?

by Jennie Ruby

To the great joy of my colleague AJ at IconLogic, who tipped me off about this change, and to the relief of writers and editors everywhere who use the Associated Press Stylebook, the 2010 edition has declared website to be one word and lowercase, instead of the official spelling listed in Websters: Web site. And the AP–as editors affectionately call the style guide–has also released an AP Stylebook application for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Although many technical publications have spelled website as one word for years, the dictionary still capitalizes the W because it is part of the proper name World Wide Web. Although Webster recently added website as an alternate spelling of Web site, many editors have chafed under the need to use what appears to be an outdated spelling. Having a major style guide declare website the official spelling gives editors an additional argument for the fresher spelling.

And the new iPhone app for the AP style guide gives writers and editors access to some of the most useful features of the style guide, without the need for carrying around the entire printed book.

The new app has an alphabetical listing of common style answers, such as whether to capitalize the words congressman and congresswoman (no) and whether to hyphenate e-mail (yes). In addition to the alphabetical listing, the app has the chapters on business, sports and social media terms, from the book, along with advice on punctuation.

I was able to look up website, e-mail, e-book and e-commerce to check hyphenation. I was able to find out that the word app can be used on the second reference to a program designed for a smart phone. And I was able to verify that smart phone does not need to be capitalized.

As an added bonus, the AP Stylebook app allows me to make notes of my own on any item, so that if one of my editing clients has a specific usage, my note appears every time I look up that item.

At $24.99, the app costs slightly more than the printed book ($18.95). The AP style guide is also available as an online subscription ($25/year). But having plunked down my dollars on the app, I am set for the moment. Having the answers to style questions right on my iPod Touch lightens my briefcase for teaching editing–no need to carry an extra style guide–and adds the fun of using an electronic device to the tediousness of having to look things up.

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Are you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an effective voiceover script? If so, consider attending my Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts class. I also teach the Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts class.

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About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.